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The Power of Nightmares Part 3

December 8, 2006 By Graham English

The Shadows In The Cave

The precautionary principle: Not having the evidence that something might not become a problem is not a reason for not taking action as if it were a problem. It is a powerful triple-negative. Action without evidence is justified.

We had to make a shift in the way we thought about things. So being reactive, waiting for a crime to be committed, or waiting for the evidence of a commission of a crime didn’t seem to us to be an appropriate way to protect the american people.”
– Attorney General John Ashcroft

The paradigm of prevention: Instead of holding people accountable for what you can prove they have done in the past, you lock them based on what you think or speculate they might do in the future. And how can a person who’s locked up based on what you think they might do in the future disprove your speculation?

The idea of a hidden, well-organized web of terror is a fantasy. And by embracing the precautionary principle, the politicians imagine the most horrifying outcomes from an organization that doesn’t even exist. And they count on no one questioning them because the very basis of the precautionary principle is to imagine the worse without supporting evidence. So the politicians with the darkest imaginations become the most influential. The fear of a phantom enemy is all they have left to maintain their power.

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Filed Under: Opinion, Video Tagged With: Afghanistan, BBC, documentary, influence, Islam, Neoconservatism, persuasion, Politics, power, terrorism, videos

About Graham English

Graham English is a musician, author, and entrepreneur.

Comments

  1. Stephanie says

    December 15, 2006 at 8:54 PM

    I wonder sometimes just how well-educated these dark imagineers are in the art of manifesting, and how conscious they are of how intricate these fantasies become. Do they truly know, or are they just so adeptly focused for the sake of the “rush” of power. How deep do the intentions and the consciousness really go, I wonder.

  2. Ahmaud says

    March 14, 2008 at 11:29 AM

    While it may not be as well organized as they believe it to be, to say that their fears are unfounded would be a logical fallacy. What one must be careful of is developing conclusions that do not follow from the premises. Ashcroft was one of the few who realized this errant logic, and did his best to correct it.

    There is a second danger that the sort of ideology you discuss facilitates. There is this idea that tragedy is entirely preventable. We can do our best to curtail violence, but to stop it entirely, without the express consent of every individual everywhere to refrain from violence, is so improbably as to be virtually impossible. The next best thing is to prosecute those who do commit crimes and, as the philosophers of old did, spur individuals on to seek ‘the Good.’

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